Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Websterâ€™s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Origin

From Ancient Greek Ï„ÏÎ±Î³Î¹ÎºÏŒÏ‚ (tragikos, â€œof or relating to tragedyâ€), from Ï„ÏÎ¬Î³Î¿Ï‚ (tragos, â€œmale goatâ€), a reference to the goat-satyrs of the theatrical plays of the Dorians.

Sentence Examples

She shoved the photo back into the envelope and closed the lip, willing herself not to think about the previous pregnancy and its tragic end.

It was a tragic love story, one she knew the end to and dreaded seeing how it came to be that way.

Bird Song remained nearly empty during the week and half full weekends when get-away folks from Grand Junction, and sometimes even Colorado Springs or Denver, left the kiddies with grandma and snuck over the mountains for a little R and R. An occasional ice climber continued to remind the group of the receding memories of the recent tragic past.

I realize in most ways Edith isn't deserving of too much sympathy, but I still think of her as a tragic figure.

Words near tragic in the dictionary

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Quote

California is a tragic country — like Palestine, like every Promised Land. Its short history is a fever-chart of migrations — the land rush, the gold rush, the oil rush, the movie rush, the Okie fruit-picking rush, the wartime rush to the aircraft factories — followed, in each instance, by counter-migrations of the disappointed and unsuccessful, moving sorrowfully homeward. Christopher Isherwood